Abortion Statistics

Dear Victorious,

I've read that more than 50 million abortions have been performed in America since the Roe vs. Wade decision. How should we think about such a number? What context does it belong in?

Pro-Lifer

Dear Pro,

I have no reason to doubt the number, so I'll trust the experts in the media and assume that it is reasonably accurate. But if that is the case, then the number doesn't really tell the story. Consider that babies were being aborted in the 1970's. If those babies had not been aborted, they would be adults now, working and raising their own families. So, for example, if we hadn't aborted those babies, America's population would be more than 50 million larger right now. In fact, I expect it would be considerably more. Perhaps we have an unnatural deficit of 100 million people as a result of those 50 million abortions.

What context should we put this in? We should consider it one of the greatest travesties of the human race. I can think of no other single act or single decision that has cost more in terms of human life. Not even the Jewish holocaust had numbers in this stratosphere. Even if you found no moral dilemma with abortion itself, you would have to consider the impact on society of 50 million minds that never got applied to the human experiment. Each one of those 50 million had a God-given purpose. But it will never be fulfilled.

I for one wonder what some of those purposes were. What unknown costs are we paying as the price for having kept these creations of God from serving their purpose?